“…even in darkness I cannot hide from you.” Psalm 139:12

The last few days have been busy, but dark! We continue to have problems with power outages at Setanga Lodge and around town, mostly in the late afternoon and evening. We have seen fireworks from the transformer behind the lodge, and it appears as though some of the electrical wires are welded together. It has become almost a daily occurrence to lose power, so if the electricity is on when we get home, we rush to cook dinner and bathe, hoping to complete at least this much before the next outage.
Ron has spent the last few days as truck driver, continuing to pick up and deliver cement blocks at the construction site. We were able to watch the blocks being made at Brown Banda’s yard. The cement is mixed by hand – bags of cement are mixed with stones, and sand forming a large pile on the ground. Then a depression is made in the middle of the pile and water is added. Using a shovel, turning the mixture over and over, the water is thoroughly incorporated, until it’s finally cement. Then another man fills a metal form to create the blocks. He fills the inside portion of a two part form, then beats the cement down with his shovel and adds more cement if needed. He then removes the inside form by standing on the outside edges, then the outside form easily slides off. The blocks are lined up singly across the yard and another man waters them for some time, and then they are left to cure. It’s a labor intensive project, and it seems that no two blocks are exactly the same.
It has become usual for us to pick up riders in the back of the truck when entering and leaving George. The George community does not have any stores or services, or any mills to grind their maize, so they must travel 3.5 kilometers to Twapia for their needs. We have picked up men carrying two 100kg sacks of maze (over 200 lbs) on the backs of their bicycles, to go to Twapia to have it ground into mealie meal, which is used to make the staple food of nshima. We have picked up elderly women carrying their bags of food. We picked up one man carrying a log on his head that was about a foot in diameter and longer than truck. Monday we picked up four boys, seven or eight years old as we headed out of George. They were all smiles, riding in the back of the truck, peering through the window at us, laughing and talking all the while. Later, we brought them back after their excursion to Twapia. They had gone to Twapia to buy the materials to make traps to catch rats to sell to the community for food. Evidently a common practice here, as we learned from these enterprising young boys!
Ron has also developed “Ron’s Road Crew”. He and Teddy have been using the dirt dug from the septic, and filling in the really big craters on the road to George! It’s still a rough ride, but everyone is thankful for this improvement, and we hope it will also help with the wear-and-tear on the vehicles.
Yesterday morning we began the production of having the OMNI Children’s Village sign installed at the roadside entrance. First we took the sign to William the welder at Twapia to have it bolted to steel poles. He advised the sign would be ready at 15 hours (3 pm). At 15 hours we loaded the truck with stone, sand, a bag of cement, a wheelbarrow, shovels, levels, one of the huge barrels of water, and Foster, Philemon, Vincent, Dixon, Godwin and Teddy. We stopped at the entrance, offloading the tools and everyone but Teddy, who went to Twapia with us. The sign was not ready. But William assured us it would be soon. We walked around Twapia for awhile, visited one of the mills where the maize is ground, and snacked on some fritters. As we walked through Twapia we were followed by Arnold. Arnold is a young man about 22 years old who wanders the streets of Twapia, taking shelter wherever he can, exhibits strange behavior and is constantly talking to himself. We saw him pour mealie meal over his head, tuck branches from a bush in his trousers, dance in the middle of the street, and he threw some small bits of trash into the truck. He was in constant motion. Teddy said Arnold causes no harm to anyone, and it’s just a pity that this all seems to have resulted from him taking the local drug called daggar. At 16:30 hours William appeared with the sign and we returned to find the holes dug for the sign, and the men waiting. Too bad the holes were not the same distance apart as the poles. So, they quickly redug one of the holes, mixed the cement in the wheelbarrow, and installed the sign. We are official.